Three dimensional simulations were performed for the deformation of a slab in a roller hearth type slab reheating furnace. The main objective of this study was to examine the deformation pattern of the slab due to the shadow effect, i.e., the temperature difference between the upper and lower slab surfaces, in particular, the variations of displacement and effective stress in the vertical direction. A commercially available FE code, ANSYS Workbench , was used in a fully coupled thermo-elasticity analysis. Several cases with different slab surface temperatures were selected for the simulations. For the sake of simplicity, the temperature environment inside the furnace was assumed to be homogeneous for the upper and lower faces of the slab. Two cases of with different slab width were selected as model geometry. The deformation patterns were computed and explained in terms of periodicity and symmetry. The results indicated that the shadow effect leads to a significant displacement in the vertical direction and, thereby, is one of the main reasons for the separation of the slab and its supports. These simulations also predicted that the deformation is more severe along the transverse direction than along the longitudinal direction.